Hide and Seek
by Ark Temper
Summary: Harry had always had a fascination with the game Hide and Seek. And with the Cloak of Invisibility, well it only just made him that much better at it. Allowing him to discover things. Things that interested him, things that disgusted him, and things he would forever treasure.


Harry had always enjoyed playing the game Hide and Seek. Perhaps it was due to the Dursleys always hiding him away, or his cousin playing his favourite game of 'Harry Hunting' where Dudley would seek Harry for hours on end. It is probably a large reason why he enjoyed being a quidditch seeker as well, it was like playing one big game of hide and seek. Just instead of multiple people hiding and a single seeker, there were two seekers and one impossibly small and fast hider known as the golden snitch. What has this got to do with everything though? Well this has everything to do with everything really, you could probably say that the years Harry Potter spent at Hogwarts could be likened to a big game of hide and seek, hiding away from the danger looming over his head and often times his peers when they believed he was the source. While at the same time seeking that very danger out to stop what ever nefarious plans it was up to this time.

But that isn't what this story is about, no this story is about an actual game of Hide and Seek. One which Harry started to play in earnest after his first christmas at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, the christmas where he received probably the best present he could have ever thought he would ever come to possess for a lover of such a game. Harry received an Invisibility Cloak, to most people they would believe such an item to be unsporting, for surely you can never truly be caught if you had no need to hide due to such a useful artifact as one which could hide a person in plain sight. But no, Harry didn't see it that way for someone whose entire life amounted to a large game of Hide and Seek this cloak only meant one thing, he was now better at the game he so loved. So at night, he would don his cloak and go out seeking, while also hiding from those who sought him. Like nosy cats and greasy men with hooked noses.

* * *

So as Harry wandered the Castle as was his norm, playing his game he did stumble on to many things over the years he attended the eccentric school, things he found interesting, things he found disturbing and even things that to his dying days Harry could honestly say that he treasured the memory of. One of these things happened in his first year, having being forced to spend almost a full day in the library with his friends Ron and Hermione a night of playing Hide and Seek was just what he needed, so wandering the halls under his invisibility cloak, Harry wandered down to the sixth floor. This night was one of the nights which Professor Snape was on duty, how did Harry know this? Well Harry had already run in to him at least four times, each time Harry would make just enough noise from under the cloak to catch the dour potion master's attention before quickly dashing away as quietly as he could. Often times running down corridors making enough noise to sound like a student afraid of getting caught, only to stop and hide in an alcove to watch Snape sweep past trying to find what ever miscreant was out of bed and make them regret that they even could to get out of bed. Eventually however, this game of cat and mouse, well more of a game of cat and cat as there wasn't really a mouse to catch, got boring for Harry who decided that his time would be better spent exploring the castle attempting to discover secrets that it must certainly hide within its walls.

Stepping into a room on the sixth floor Harry shed his cloak. The room looked like something between a mix between a broom closet and a classroom, being bigger than the former but didn't have the furnishings of the latter. He looked around and sighed, almost writing the room off as a failure with nothing interesting in it when our intrepid explorer heard a noise from behind one of the walls. A soft thud accompanied by a low groan, it happened once, then twice and then three times. Each time the groan would get louder and the thudding that much more forceful pouring suggestive images into the young boy's head. Even if he had been quite sheltered at the Dursley's, mainly due to their desire to coddle Dudley and protect him from the harsh ways of the world, which incidentally also shielded Harry since while they did not treat him any where near as well as their precious 'Duddikins', they wouldn't want him gaining any such knowledge which could corrupt their precious son. Not any more than the ambient 'freakishness' which Harry apparently exuded, whatever exuded meant at least. Though you have to hand it to the efforts of a single Irish boy and his muggle born friend who managed to get Harry caught up right away in such manners, not that you could expect any different in a male dormitory. Quickly though another groan and thump snapped Harry out of his thoughts, as he slowly moved towards the wall, almost hesitantly he placed a hand against it, and then a second as if any moment he could fall though.

In some respects that is what Harry pretty much did end up doing, or at least the result was kind of the same. Running his hand across the stone it brushed over a number of etchings, something which Harry paid no mind to thinking they were just markings on the stone. What happened next however surprised him greatly as the wall suddenly vanished causing a sharp retraction of both arms to the side. Unfortunately Mister Potter didn't lean back any just took his arms which were supporting himself away from the wall, allowing him to fall forwards until his face hit... the wall. Well, not really the wall but where the wall was but moments before though instead there seemed to be some sort of invisible barrier. One which allowed him to see through though if by the boys expression which was facing him, they couldn't. Just like his invisibility cloak. It was only after a moment of ensuring the boy facing Harry couldn't in fact see him, something which consisted greatly of performing several rude gestures and jumping around, almost going as far as dropping his pants before Harry realised that such an action was truly past the line. This was when Harry took the moment to truly look upon the scene before him, drinking in the details as only a curious eleven year old can. The boy had the green trim to his robes of a Slytherin, the girl the yellow trim of Hufflepuff. There situated just inches away there was a boy and girl together from different houses, something which Harry had never seen before.

Yet there they were, sitting before him while playing... Wizards Chess. The girl sat with her back resting against the wall of what was obviously a broom closet while the boy sat across from her, both were staring intently at the board in front of them. With the girl's black pieces being mostly gone from her side of the board Harry could only assume that she was as skilled as he in the game, which was to say. Not very. It was in that moment that Harry finally found the cause for the groaning and banging, as the boy moved a bishop across the board to capture the girl's remaining knight. The piece getting brutally murdered before being dragged off to the side of the board, it was this occurrence which caused the girl to groan out, in what Harry could now identify as annoyance before slamming her hand against the wall behind her. Causing the image to shimmer outwards like a stone dropped in a pond making the water ripple. It was at this sight which Harry, thoroughly confused managed to make out two very faint voices, the first belonging to the girl, grumbling about her steadily quickening loss.  
"I don't even know why I bother risking it like this to just come and play chess with you." The girl folded her arms before turning her head away from the boy, possibly pouting but Harry couldn't see to find out.

Chuckling the boy quickly replied. "Because you both love the game and my company of course. That and neither of our houses would allow you to fraternise with each other while the sun is up of course, anyway enough of the chit-chat. It is your move and the sooner that ends the sooner I can go back to whipping your butt." A cheeky grin spread across the Slytherin's face at the last comment, awaiting for the Hufflepuff to take her next move. It was at this point that Harry started to get bored with watching this and walked back to his cloak, the wall rippling with colour before eventually fading back into the image of a stone wall, upon closer inspection. Harry found what he had brushed his hand against earlier, it was a string of strange shapes carved into the stone below a single word, "Wormtail".  
'Huh' Harry thought to himself 'What a strange name.' Whipping the cloak around him, Harry quickly lost interest in pondering who or what a 'Wormtail' was and quickly ran off down the halls, looking for Professor Snape, whom for all the animosity shared between the two in class. Was indeed Harry's favourite unwilling play mate in the castle, not a very good seeker Harry had to admit but he did almost make up for it with Tenacity.

While playing Hide and Seek over the years, Harry found things which he found interesting, things he found disturbing and things he will always treasure. This was all three of those things, at the time a disappearing wall captivated him. After he had met Wormtail in later years and having grown up and experienced more life had to offer, that the vile man had made a wall which could seemingly disappear and show the neighbouring broom closet disgusted him. On the other side of the disappearing wall, the small unknown, to everyone but himself and those involved, rebellion against house divides was something he would come to truly treasure in later life.

* * *

**So, this was my first try at writing any sort of Fan Fiction. I've had many ideas of things to write which have popped in to my head ever since I started reading the content of this sight a year and a half ago. Most of which were projects which are honestly quite daunting for a first time writer such as myself. So I decided to start out short. This is intended to be a one short, or perhaps a small series of one shots if the inspiration for any other small scenes such as this pop into my head. All of which will be about little events which happen while Harry is out and about under his invisibility cloak. Well, I hope you enjoyed reading it. Please leave a review with your thoughts along with whether you liked it or not. Though I will ask that if you didn't like it. then include reasons as to why you didn't like it (this goes for if you liked it as well actually).**

**Ark Temper  
**


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